As Glenn Greenwald explains today, we’ve had a good deal of official censorship of the Wikileaks cables, not just in the general sense with Joe Lieberman nudging the site off of Amazon’s cloud service, but in the particular. Several of the most sensitive revelations in not only this but a number of Wikileaks releases over the past year just don’t make it into American newspapers and news reports. He gives a sampling, but I want to focus on one: the State Department pressuring the Spanish government to stop investigations of torture and mistreatment by US nationals. Scott Horton of Harper’s writes:

Attention has focused on three separate matters, each pending in the Spanish national security court, the Audiencia Nacional: the investigation into the 2003 death of a Spanish cameraman, José Cuoso, as a result of the mistaken shelling of Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel by a U.S. tank; an investigation into the torture of Spanish subjects held at Guantánamo; and a probe into the use of Spanish bases and airfields for extraordinary renditions flights, including the one which took Khaled El-Masri to Baghdad and then on to Afghanistan in 2003.

These cables reveal a large-scale, closely coordinated effort by the State Department to obstruct these criminal investigations [...]

Diplomats routinely monitor and report on legal cases that affect national interests. These cables show that the U.S. embassy in Madrid had far exceeded this mandate, however, and was actually successfully steering the course of criminal investigations, the selection of judges, and the conduct of prosecutors. Their disclosure has created deep concern about the independence of judges in Spain and the manipulation of the entire criminal justice system by a foreign power

David Corn has more on the bipartisan cooperation, between the Bush and Obama Administrations, to derail these investigations. He focuses on this cable from April 2009, which lays out the history of this obstruction. This included visits by Republican Senators like Judd Gregg and Mel Martinez, as well as Embassy officials in Madrid (this was two months after Gregg withdrew his nomination for Commerce Secretary; at least he and Obama could still work together on the important stuff). Basically they all leaned on Spanish officials, including the chief prosecutor in the case, until the Spanish Attorney General said he wouldn’t support the criminal complaint against Bush-era officials, including Alberto Gonzales and Douglas Feith, for their role in authorizing torture. Later, the Spanish Parliament passed legislation that limits the “universal jurisdiction” law for Spanish courts, and the case fizzled. Corn concludes:

Back when it seemed that this case could become a major international issue, during an April 14, 2009, White House briefing, I asked press secretary Robert Gibbs if the Obama administration would cooperate with any request from the Spaniards for information and documents related to the Bush Six. He said, “I don’t want to get involved in hypotheticals.” What he didn’t disclose was that the Obama administration, working with Republicans, was actively pressuring the Spaniards to drop the investigation. Those efforts apparently paid off, and, as this WikiLeaks-released cable shows, Gonzales, Haynes, Feith, Bybee, Addington, and Yoo owed Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thank-you notes.

As Will Bunch noted, during the campaign, then-Senator Obama promised he would “have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that’s already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued” on torture. Instead, while in office, he not only declined to investigate but worked with Republicans to scotch other countries’ investigations. Bunch writes:

Here’s the thing: In a sense, I agree with the Obama’s administration’s actions here, in that it shouldn’t be Spain’s responsibility to determine whether American high-ranked officials committed crimes. It is America’s responsibility to determine whether high-ranking American officials committed crimes, and in that regard we have failed miserably as a nation. That failure took place largely under the presidency of Barack Obama. It is why officials as far away as Spain have to think about getting involved.

The funny thing is that this sense of expediency, the lack of accountability, and one set of rules for the powerful and another set for everyone else, is now coming to permeate American society [...] Where on earth did people in America get this idea, that we only have a system of justice when it happens to be convenient? Maybe they got it from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and from a nation that looks at a president who invaded another country on bogus, trumped up pretenses and ordered illegal acts of torture – and sends him on a cross-country book tour with a multi-million-dollar reward? Actions have consequences, but so does inaction, and for all the right-wing clucking, the reality is that the failure of this country to hold a president and his aides accountable for things that were not “policy differences” but serious violations of the law is making America weaker, not stronger, as our moral fiber and our standing in the world slowly erodes.

The greatest failing of this country over the last decade was this steady undermining of the legal system and accountability for crimes, depending on the social class, influence, and political power.

Nigerian authorities will charge former Vice President Dick Cheney over a bribery scandal that is alleged to involve Halliburton, BusinessWeek reports. An arrest warrant “will be issued and transmitted through Interpol,” said Godwin Obla, the prosecuting counsel at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Nigeria.

The lawlessness of the U.S. started before it was even a country. Remember the revolutionaries committed treason. But even if you excuse that, one of the early battles in the revolutionary war was the colonists invasion of Canada (for national security reasons, lol). International war norms, even back then did not comport with invasion of nonbelligerents.

The extent of U.S. rationalizing lawlessness has waxed & waned over the years, but has always been there to one degree or another.

a week or so ago, I commented to Jim White that I was gladdened to see folks waking up but more than a little dismayed that it took caving to the GOP and not War Crimes that did it -

I was wrong – I am so very pleased to see when confronted with fact based complicity, these same folks are outraged.

5,000+ comments at HuffPo, and another 1,000 at Big Orange – none of it pretty. a bare smattering of apologist dogwhistles here and there – “questionable jurisdiction”, but man oh man, it looks like they’ve finally cleaved all but the most deluded from their base.

good to see folks aren’t pissed off simply because it’s Bush and Cheney, they are raging that is is War Crimes

By his own admission Taibbi was late to the party..Talking to Thom Hartmann yesterday he started to wonder about things when mccain’s camp couldn’t come up with good answers about gas and oil prices.
The fact was, many of these financial houses were bidding up oil and commodity prices to recapitalize and hedge against the losses they were expecting.
Most any in that strata knew what was coming because Basel II was going to come into effect on the 30th of September.
The banks in Europe, Russia, and the Mid East were getting wise to the effect that AIG SP in London and by extension Goldman had sold hyper leveraged instruments that were worthless.
They made the call to mr. hanky and the bernank and said pay up or else.
We paid.
From that moment, Obama became an accessory after the fact and continued the cover up and has maintained a policy that has been ‘working’ at recapitalizing these insolvent banks. The money on the ‘sidelines’ is the restoration of solvency or the appearance of it.

When Baltazar Garzon ran into career trouble and the Spanish investigation petered out, I suspected the fine hand of our government was involved and here’s the proof. No wonder Washington hacks like Joe Lieberman want to crack down on Wikileaks — it’s informing us how our tax dollars are deplorably spent. I thought the Spaniards would do a better job or resisting our government’s pressure, but obviously I was wrong.

how can we stop this? I don’t want my country to bully everyone else into shutting up. I don’t want these criminals to escape justice. What can realistically be done to change this country from the rogue belligerent into the moral light of freedom most of us once thought it was? Do we have to create and fund a new, separate news network to broadcast reality in order to combat what the current networks use to pacify the sheeple?

Agree that lawlessness (due to American “exceptionalism?”) has always been part of the culture here. About the waxing and waning, that means as the pendulum swung one way, there was always a force pulling it the other way.

Considering the distance the pendulum is swinging in the direction of lawlessness with no apparent resistence pulling it in the other direction, the mechanism could fail altogether.

Agree. I think the lawlessness of the Anglo-Europeans began pretty much when Christopher Columbus first clapped his eyes upon our fair shores. But going forward from that, one can think of, for ex, the concept of Manifest Destiny, chicken pox infested blankets provided to Native Americans (and all those broken treaties, etc etc etc with Native Americans), and so on so forth and scoobie do be do be.

The USA has “fiddled” around in Central & So America for quite some time.

In *my* time, I woke up to the lawlessness when I saw Jack Ruby (a Mafia lowlife with convenient heart problems) shoot Lee Harvey Oswald in “real life” on my teevee… I was just old enough to start realizing things were “fishy” anyway (Cuban missle crisis, etc), and then that happened. Well, really… by the time Ford got around to pardoning Nixon, it was just “old hat” …. I pretty much figured Tricky would skate with the endorsement of ReTHUG voters, which is exactly what happened.

And so on and so forth…

Yes, this nation has been effed & a criminal racket since forerver. All these notions of what “great folks” we are is just more fairy tale chimera that some citizens *enjoy believing,* which to me is akin to continuing to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy & clapping for Tinker Bell once you’re past 4 or 5… imo.

What we are witnessing today is the failure of the U.S. wartime media to hold the U.S government accountable. Thus an independent organization has stepped into the breach to enlighten the world of U.S. actions when the national media has failed. What we see today may be the growing pains of the global democracy that the U.S. has endorsed for half a century and these may be the standards that are required for a global democracy to judge itself by and to take root. Illegal and secret actions do not represent nor benefit a democratic nation, especially when the nation is the shining beacon upon that great hill. In conclusion Julian Assange’s actions should not be looked upon as treason or terrorism as they have been judged by some, but as a service to an enlightened society which the world must emulate if it is to rid t itself of an ill informed, self serving tyranny. Please do not judge this man harshly as his actions are performed with the spirit and intent that that the U.S. founding fathers would not only look upon favorably but endorse in the spirit of freedom.

It was bad enough that obama refused to investigate bush/cheney (“we must look forward, not backward”), now we have bush running around the country on his book tour, boasting that he personally authorized water-boarding. As he said, “Damn right I did.” Not a peep from the mainstream media. What kind of country is this?

Between a galactic case of fraud and war crimes the President is nothing more than bush II.
holder=berto

Thanks also for the info. Sadly I’m moving to the stage where I feel that Obama/Holder are even worse than Bush/Gonzalez… or maybe they’re just all the same bunch of low-life crooks who are just the “hired hands” (aka Jack Ruby) of the PTB.

I keep feeling that the nation has really jumped the shark over the past decade and the we’re into some deeply dark & nefarious stuff … as in, worse than usual. such things do go in cycles. Kali Yuga stuff for sure.

Ding. Ding. Ding. That is the title of the book where I am learning about the real U.S. history. Like some Jews, many protestants, including the Puritans, relying more on the OT than the NT, regard themselves as the ‘chosen people.’

Will have to think about forces pulling in the opposite direction part of your comment. I still don’t know enough about U.S. history to opine on that. Sometimes the forces were external. One of the reasons U.S. hates Castro so much is that the U.S. has always coveted Cuban territory for its own. Loss of VN war was another.

This post points out that U.S. can strong arm countries into doing its bidding these days. But there are pockets in the world where that is not true from time-to-time. For example, Turkey refused to allow U.S. invasion of Iraq from its territory & is pissed at wiki cable leaks. Latin America has been extracting itself from U.S. maw, owing to some savvy leaders & U.S. preoccupation in ME.

Yes, there’s that, too, which is, I feel, yet another way to “test the waters” to see what the gullible populace will take. One notes that very little has been said either for or against the Bush waterboarding boasting… I certainly have heard NO ONE comment to me about it in my social circle, and when I’ve mentioned it, I’ve either gotten blank stares or shrugs.

I share your frustration orcatjf. I would strongly urge you and all responders here to tune in daily to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! She, and her partner Juan Gonzales, are true journalists who challenge power and expose corruption and hypocrisy EVERY DAY. Supporting such fearless journalists is one way to keep democracy alive. She is on Free Speech TV (FSTV) daily at 8am and 3pm, channel 9410 on DISH and Ch. 375 on Direct TV. Also LINK TV is also first rate and airs a lot of progressive info and documentaries that would embarrass the right and the powerful if that were possible. They are in their fund drive now and airing a lot of really good stuff. Tom Hartmann and Laura Flanders are also there (GRIT TV). GO THERE, PLEASE. Contribute. Tivo it and watch it. You will be amazed. There is actually some truth out there, but it is rare and needs your support. My wife and I are retired, so we have the luxury of watching it faithfully every day.

Good for you. I’ve done a lot of sports but, after elementary school, running was not one of them. Polish peasant build. When I complained about my short legs, my father (an elementary school phys ed teacher) would retort: What’s the matter with them; they reach the ground, don’t they?

OK, being the employer of last resort in Ulster County, I must leave for awhile to watch my beekeeper finish winterizing the hives. (Driveway guy is also coming & going with loads of gravel; just pulled in with another one. And wood stove guys are going to show up with a replacement. But that’s another story…)

Another example to add to my list indicating how morally bankrupt President Obama is. Unfortunately, this shows he was morally bankrupt early on and didn’t “just need more time” as so many deluded people continued to say back then. When are we going to elect a President with a moral backbone to represent the citizens first?

//ANNOUNCEMENT FOLLOWS INTENSIVE USG OUTREACH//
¶3. (C) Following revelations by the Spanish press that the complaint had been filed, the Acting DCM on March 31 and April 1 phoned FM Moratinos’ Chief of Staff Agustin Santos, and MOJ Director General for International Judicial Cooperation Aurora Mejia about the matter. Both expressed their concern at the case but stressed the independence of the Spanish judiciary. The A/DCM stressed to both that this was a very serious matter for the USG and asked that the Embassy be kept informed of any developments.
MADRID 00000392 002.2 OF 003
¶4. (C) As reported in REF A, Senator Judd Gregg, accompanied by the Charge d’Affaires, raised the issue with Luis Felipe Fernandez de la Pena, Director General Policy Director for North America and Europe during a visit to the Spanish MFA on April 13. Senator Gregg expressed his concern about the case. Fernandez de la Pena lamented this development, adding that judicial independence notwithstanding, the MFA disagreed with efforts to apply universal jurisdiction in such cases.
¶5. (C) Zaragoza on April 14 called Embassy Madrid’s FSN Legal Adviser and informed her that a more thorough study had revealed that the complaint was targeted against legal advisors with no executive authority and that it was legally difficult to establish what type of offense the six had committed and the degree to which they participated in the alleged offenses. Zaragoza said the complaint lacked details and was directed against USG policy rather than a specific perpetrator. He said he would ask Conde Pumpido to review whether Spain has jurisdiction in this case and indicated that he hoped the Spanish AG would draft a clear set of rules on how and when Spain should prosecute universal jurisdiction complaints.
¶6. (C) As reported in SEPTEL, Senator Mel Martinez, accompanied by the Charge d’Affaires, met Acting FM Angel Lossada during a visit to the Spanish MFA on April 15. Martinez and the Charge underscored that the prosecutions would not be understood or accepted in the U.S. and would have an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship. The Senator also asked if the GOS had thoroughly considered the source of the material on which the allegations were based to ensure the charges were not based on misinformation or factually wrong statements. Lossada responded that the GOS recognized all of the complications presented by universal jurisdiction, but that the independence of the judiciary and the process must be respected. The GOS would use all appropriate legal tools in the matter. While it did not have much margin to operate, the GOS would advise Conde Pumpido that the official administration position was that the GOS was “not in accord with the National Court.” Lossada reiterated to Martinez that the executive branch of government could not close any judicial investigation and urged that this case not affect the overall relationship, adding that our interests were much broader, and that the universal jurisdiction case should not be viewed as a reflection of the GOS position.
¶7. (C) Meanwhile, the Embassy has been involved in DOJ-led talks to have Zaragoza – who attended the April 16 press conference – lead a four-person team of GOS officials to Washington for a possible meeting with U.S. Deputy AG David Ogden or AG Eric Holder during the week of May 18. Zaragoza’s wife, who is Conde Pumpido’s chief of staff, would reportedly be one of the four.

Sometimes it helps to get the text straight from the primary documents.